


The Night Harpies

by moon_pix



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: F/F, The Black Dragonflight, Twilight Highlands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-25 22:57:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7550488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moon_pix/pseuds/moon_pix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Horde reconnaissance mission in Twilight Highlands, inspired by the female goblin NPC that powers the old zeppelins with a stationary bike and the Soviet Nachthexen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Night Harpies

“Yo Tansy, gimme some eyeballs!”, my sea snail headset bellows at me.

I unhook a pair from the the organizational pockets on the side of our ship and toss my sister Trixsy the dusty goggles with a silent nod. Trixsy isn’t my blood sister - no, my family all died on Kezan. Trixsy’s my first mate on my ship Madame Yellowjacket, part of an elite unit based out of Orgrimmar. Our leader is Lisbeth, and she was the first zeppelin captain. She handpicked the rest of us women and taught us everything we know and named us the Night Harpies. You’d never find a man on our ships either. All goblin, all female crew. Lisbeth won’t tolerate fighting, and this trust is what keeps us working as well as we do. Trixsy and I worked together even before we joined the Night Harpies and I wouldn’t pick anyone else as my right hand woman. The Horde pays us the big bucks, and right now they’re paying for us to lead a reconnaissance mission with our hand picked crew over a piece of land in The Eastern Kingdoms. Lisbeth tells us to ignore politics, but its pretty easy to imagine why we’re here. If this wasn’t how I made my living, I’d find war pretty stupid.

 

Trixsy grins at me as she dusts the goggles off on her jumpsuit and slaps them on her head. She double checks the rope tied to her waist attached to the metal braces of the zeppelin, nods at her assistant and starts scaling the rope up to the helium filled balloon. Our air pressure doohicky started blaring a little siren earlier and pinpointed an air leak. The last thing we need is for our ship to crash and burn in the middle of the mission. Trixsy doesn’t look it, but she’s actually an accomplished tailor. Winking at me, she shoves a sewing kit in her mouth and encourages Cibby to climb up behind her. The two of them start carefully evaluating the surface of the balloon and gesturing to each other.

Trixsy’s off key humming floats through my sea snails. I press the tip of the shell to switch chambers to the ship wide conversation. I wait for a lull in the conversation and speak up. “Marley, what do you got down there?” 

I hear her giggle in response. “Nobody’s gonna believe their eyes. My pictures are beautiful, our cameras are happy. A real treasure trove, boss. We got the orcs over here, dragons there, and I can see some strange buildings over on that side. You gotta keep going in boss, cause my girls are seeing some real strange shit to the north.”

“Is that the route you recommend, Marley?”

“Boss, listen. We gotta just follow the mountain line up and around to the Wetlands. Higher though, these dragons are making me real nervous.”

“Noted. You got that, Pinky?”

Our navigator grunted in acknowledgment. Pinky wasn’t a talker, but I absolutely knew she would get us where we need to go.

Satisfied, I pull the ear-piece off and shake my ears out. I peered out of the control room and see our two bikers, Mitzi and Mizzly. Mizzly is on the bike, probably ending her first shift. Her twin sister Mitzi is doing overly dramatic lunges in front of the bike that powers the ship. Mizzly yells at her sister, and I can just barely make out the words from 20 feet away. Something about her powerful thighs powering the Horde war machine? She’s right, biker thighs are no joke. Lixsy makes their bike shorts especially for them because there’s no way you’re finding something that fits from a shop in The Drag. Goblins tend to be more muscular than most races, but those girls are something else. Mizzly catches my eye and waves to me through the window. I quickly shove my sea snail back in my ear to hear Mizzly interrupt an idle conversation with “Watch out girls! Ship’s slowin’ down while Mitzi gets on this thing!”

Mizzly tumbles down and the ship instantly starts to slow down. A deckhand named Marigold rushes over to help Mizzly, while Mitzi practically somersaults into her seat. She starts to move the heavy pedals and tightens the handkerchief tied around her forehead. She nods at her sister, then Marigold, then me. 

“Marigold, you need help taking Mizzly down to the massage tables?”

She flings Mizzly over her shoulder and begins to head towards downstairs. “Boss, this biker is light as a feather.”

I click the sea snail to switch chambers. “Trixsy, Cibby? How’s it going up there?”

Cibby’s high pitched voice pipes up, “We’re all stitched up, Captain. Heading down now.”

I go to help them climb down the ropes and get back onto the ship. Cibby drops down first and winks at Trixsy as she offers her arm for support. Trixsy pointedly ignores her and hops down on her own. I turn to help Cibby, who’s managed to get a bit tangled in her harness. I lean into Cibby’s ear and whisper, “You’re not gonna have any luck while she’s on the clock.”

Cibby sighs and mutters “Thanks, boss,” and finally shakes her legs out of the harness.

Trixsy stands up from putting away her harness and tucks her goggles into the back pocket of her jumpsuit. She rolls her eyes at the two of us and then says, “I’m gonna go check on our recon.” She points to her eyeballs and then below deck. I nod and she trots over to the stairwell.

I peer over the side of our zeppelin. I can see what I presume are the orc settlements to the east but I also spot other settlements scattered around. Even from this distance, they look vastly different than what we know pf the orc architecture in the area. It’s late at night, here’s hoping that whoever is out there won’t notice us.

Shrieks begin to ring out and I scream “What was that?” into the sea snail. Before anyone has any time to react, a small black dragon drops from above and lands on the side of our ship. This isn’t a full size dragon, but still large enough to do a huge amount of damage and take us all down. The dragon shrieks and blows fire across the deck. Everyone scatters, and I scream “We need to protect our biker!”. Marigold runs over to her and pulls a small can out of her pocket and sprays in a straight line in front of the biker and between the dragon. A huge ice wall springs up, and I mentally thank every deity I’ve ever heard of. As long as we can keep that wall up, we have a chance. But this is my ship, my sisters and I sure as hell not dying on some stupid war mission for Garrosh Hellscream. 

I dive towards the control room and yank a rifle off the wall. Walking slowly across the deck, I face the dragon screeching and breathing fire towards us. I begin shooting, aiming at its eyes as best I can. One of my shots rings true, and blood begins gushing from the dragon’s right eye. The dragon shrieks and lunges towards me. I keep firing, even as I can see that a bloody, popped eyeball is not going to stop this black dragon. The dragon swings its forearm up and the seconds stretch out into hours as an impossibly sharp claw comes towards me. It cuts through the right side of my face and down my shoulder. I know I’m going to die and my brain begins to shut down. The claw begins tearing down my body but is stopped by my collarbone, and reflexively swings back. I fly through the air. Just as I begin to tumble away, I see Pinky charge out of the control room wielding a gigantic crossbow. I keep falling, but my jumpsuit catches on a tangle of ropes swinging from the bottom of the ship. Blood is in my eyes and I finally start to pass out. I feel a large rocking shudder go across the zeppelin and screams before my brain finally trickles to a close.

I feel something brushing against my face and a woman speaking in an unfamiliar, lilting language. I struggle to open my eyes and as I do, I see a beautiful dwarven woman with bright blue facial tattoos screwed up in concentration just a few inches from me. Green light reflects off her face and I can feel my skin begin to stitch together, and it is excruciating. She pulls out a small knife from her waist and I start to panic and try to move away, but pain screams through my body. The pair of us swing slowly from side to side and I realize I must have caught on an anchor rope. A gryphon glides into view over her shoulder and scowls at me, while the dwarven woman continues to talk. She gestures at the gryphon, who gently swoops to fly underneath us and position its saddle underneath our legs. The woman grasps me around the waist and cuts the rope. We settle onto the gryphon and start to slowly fly up and around the zeppelin so she can bring me onto deck. She holds me carefully and I know I should not be sinking closer to her, she could have called reinforcements before I woke up, she could be bringing death to everyone I’m responsible for, but the arm around around me is tender and welcoming. 

We fly over the edge of the deck, and I hear Mitzi screaming out Pinky’s name. She raises her crossbow but lowers it a moment later as she sees my hand feebly raise up. Pinky gruffly yells out “Let’s get some room!” and everyone backs away in one movement. The gryphon lands and Trixsy tries to rush towards me, but the gryphon screeches at her and she backs away quickly. The dwarven woman gestures at Trixsy and beckons her over. Trixsy looks sideways at the gryphon and walks carefully towards us. 

“Oh, Tansy,” she cries. The dwarven woman holds me in place and hops down from the saddle. Working carefully with Trixsy, the two of them gently carry me down and Trixsy carries me in her arms. Two of my sisters, I can’t tell who, rush forward with a stretcher. The dwarven woman helps me into the stretcher and looks down at me. She moves my hair away from my eyes and I realize she’s covered with my blood.

The dwarven woman backs away and speaks to us. I don’t know if any of us understand Dwarven. She points to the ship and points away towards the sea several times. Its easy to understand she wants us to leave. I watch her mount her gryphon and look at us before she flies away, back towards the strange settlements.

Pinky is inspecting my wounds. Speaking quietly, she leans over me. “Do we finish the job, boss?”

I tentatively sigh, careful to stay still. “Fuck the job.”


End file.
